The communications industry is rapidly changing to adjust to emerging technologies and ever increasing customer demand. This customer demand for new applications and increased performance of existing applications is driving communications network and system providers to employ networks and systems having greater speed and capacity (e.g., greater bandwidth). In trying to achieve these goals, a common approach taken by many communications providers is to use packet switching technology. From time to time, the software running in packet switching devices needs to be upgraded. However, the upgrade process consumes many resources of the packet switching device. In some instances, the entire packet switch device (or portions thereof) are taken offline in performing the system upgrade.